Follow Us on Facebook

coaching

Depression feels like a hopeless place that you are trapped in. It can feel as though the life has been sucked out of you. Whether you are able to hide your depression from the outside world or not, you can’t hide it from yourself and, if not dealt with soon, can get worse as each day passes.

There are a number of symptoms which are used to diagnose depression. If you have five or more on this list and at least one from the top two for two weeks, it is a sign that you may be depressed:

Depressed mood most of the time

Loss of pleasure or interest in things you would normally enjoy

Loss of energy

Eating more or less than usual

Difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much

Poor concentration

Restlessness or lethargy

Feelings of worthlessness

Guilt

Hopelessness

Withdrawal from relationships

Suicidal thoughts

If you are suffering from suicidal thoughts or the symptoms are strong, you need to get medical help immediately. Otherwise, there is plenty you can do to help yourself. Depression can be caused by several factors:

Your thoughts (which create feelings). If you are stuck in a negative thinking spiral then practicing positive thinking, as explained in the book Think Positive, Feel Good can make a huge difference to you.

Biochemical – this is the effect of what’s happening in your body. Depression can be caused by malnutrition, absorption issues (where you are eating well but your body is not absorbing the nutrients effectively), hormonal imbalance and a lack of the feel good chemicals such as serotonin. The Asyra Pro is a bioresonence screening technology which can help to determine where there is imbalance and create balance for you. A session will include a nutritional assessment to see what your body needs to get back into balance.

Lifestyle – depression can be triggered by an incident or a general feeling of overwhelm where you simply don’t feel in control any more. It is often a result of other emotions which aren’t addressed such as anger, sadness, boredom, guilt, loneliness, stress and frustration. When you acknowledge and deal with these emotions in a positive way, depression can be averted or diminished. If you feel this may be you, why not book a consultation to see what can be done to help you? An initial telephone consultation is free of charge and I can be reached on 0845 130 0854.

Spiritual – sometimes depression can be caused by a lack of purpose or meaning in your life. If you feel that life is just the same-old-same-old, or that there is something missing, then finding some meaning can make all the difference. This can be difficult to do on your own, especially if you are depressed, but there are tools and techniques in my book 21 Ways and 21 Days to the Life You Want. Or working together may help you get there more quickly.

It certainly doesn’t help to have a loved one say “pull yourself together”. But it can help to see a professional who can determine the cause and help you through it so you can start to enjoy life again. Do call for a free telephone consultation on 0345 130 0854. You don’t have to go through this alone.

Tricia Woolfreyis an integrative therapist, an advanced clinical hypnotherapist, master practitioner in NLP, nutritionist and author, and utilises bioenergetics to help you be the best you can be. She has practices in Surrey and Harley Street, London. She can be reached on 0345 130 0854www.yourempoweredself.co.uk.

Creating change in your life can be difficult – habits can be ingrained for many years and it can seem easier to stay stuck than move forward.

In the hands of a skilled professional, hypnotherapy is great at overcoming those blocks to achieving change, making change easier. However, it’s success depends on your motivation, which a good hypnotherapist will assess in your first session. Hypnotherapy can’t force change on you but facilitate the change through you, so that you regain control over your life. It doesn’t take away your free-will in any way.

Would it surprise you to know that hypnosis has been around for thousands of years? It was also accepted by the British Medical Association in 1958. Hypnotherapy, is a process not an event and the number of sessions you need will depend on the complexity of the problem and the degree to which you are reliant on the problem as a coping mechanism for other things.

Your choice of hypnotherapist is very important – find someone who is well trained and who has a lot of experience. Finding someone who really understands psychology is a must too, as there can often be subtle nuances to behaviour which will affect the approach taken. Don’t be afraid to ask for their qualifications and what continuous professional development they do – it’s important to have someone with a strong level of skill who is motivated to keep their skills up to date. You also want to find someone who you feel comfortable with.

So, what IS hypnotherapy?

Hypnosis allows communication with your unconscious mind – that part of you which is constantly influencing your thoughts and behaviour – to help you achieve your goals and overcome any obstacles and unconscious blocks.

It is an altered state of awareness called trance, and is something we experience naturally every day – like when you drive from A to B and don’t recall the journey, because your conscious mind has been thinking about other things, or when you are out for a whole evening and feel that you have only been out for short while, or even when you cry at a sad film. All of these are natural hypnotic states. During hypnosis, you are in control throughout.. It is not sleep. It is not even relaxation, though most people feel relaxed when they are hypnotised.

Hypnotherapy is creating this naturally occurring phenomena for therapeutic effect – that which is good for your emotional and physical wellbeing.

Whilst hypnotherapy is not a magic bullet, it does need your active collaboration. It is a very powerful tool to help you on your journey.

You are in control throughout

Hypnotherapy helps you achieve what you want for yourself. You can’t be forced to do anything you don’t want to do or say anything you don’t want to say – you are in control throughout.

Almost everyone can be hypnotised

Anyone from the age of around 5 with at least a normal level of intelligence can be hypnotised – if you want to be. You cannot be hypnotised against your will so feeling comfortable with your hypnotherapist is very, very important. I like to give the first half hour of my session free of charge and no obligation – so that my client can be 100% sure – and this really helps their progress.

What does it feel like?

Everyone experiences it differently, but most people simply feel as though they have their eyes shut, and able to hear everything that goes on around them. Nothing more than that. Others feel a tremendous sense of relaxation, yet others feel tingly or numb, heavy or light. Or all of the above. Or none of them. The secret is not to expect a particular experience, not to try to relax, simply allow it to happen in whichever way is right for you.

How is it different to stage hypnosis?

People often think that hypnotherapy will be a magic cure where someone can make them do anything without any effort on their part – just like the stage shows. And sometimes it is. However, the only similarity with a stage show is that they both use the state of hypnosis. A stage show uses this state for entertainment. All individuals who participate do so because they want to. The engagement is momentary. There is no emotional agenda involved – just fun. With hypnotherapy, this can involve working on problems which have often existed for years, through layers of self-awareness, vulnerability, denial, and even resistance. If there was no resistance, you would have resolved the problem on your own. Working with your subconscious mind with hypnotherapy, it is easier to overcome these, developing new ways of being so that you can live the life you want.

What people say about hypnotherapy

Here are some typical comments people make to show you the different ways people respond:

“I got immediate results – I was very impressed!”

“I didn’t notice anything until friends and family started to say how much happier and calmer I seemed – then I realised I was!”

“I’m still not sure if I was hypnotised but I do know that I have achieved what I wanted to – so I guess I must have been”

If you are looking to make changes in your life, do try hypnotherapy. It just makes change easier. It helps you deal with stress, self-esteem, anxiety, depression and insomnia. It’s also great for weight loss, smoking cessation and IBS. If you have anything which stress makes worse, hypnotherapy can usually make better.

My clients regularly tell me that they gained far more than they came for as often other problems are resolved at the same time. Hypnotherapy could be the best investment you ever make in yourself.

Tricia Woolfrey is an integrative therapist, an advanced clinical hypnotherapist, master practitioner in NLP, nutritionist, and author and utilises bioenergetics to help you be the best you can be. She has practices in Surrey and Harley Street, London. She can be reached on 0845 130 0854 www.pw-hypnotherapy.co.uk.

Stress seems to be an ever-present force in many people’s lives. If you are lucky, you will have long periods of positive stress interspersed with periods of enjoyable calm, punctuated by the odd bout of negative stress (nobody can avoid it altogether). If you aren’t that lucky, you may be encouraged to learn that it is possible to manage your stress but first of all it is useful to understand more about it.

There are basically three levels of stress. The first level is calm. You’ve heard the expression “he is so laid back he’s horizontal”? Well, you need a little stress to have sufficient adrenaline to function at your best. You also need a little calm so that you recharge your batteries and create balance in your life.

The second level is eustress. This is any stress which has a beneficial effect. It provides feelings of fulfilment and achievement. It is where you feel energised and focused and in your flow. It gives you confidence and makes you feel empowered. However, too much excitement can also be bad for you as it raises your adrenaline and heart rate too high. So relaxation is important for balance.

The third level is negative stress and this is what can be harmful to your mood, your relationships, your productivity and your health.

The five pillars, below, are the ways you respond to or contribute to stress: psychologically, emotionally, physically, spiritually and life-load. They each interact with the other to influence your stress in one way or another:

THE FIVE PILLARS

PSYCHOLOGICAL

EMOTIONAL

PHYSICAL

LIFESTYLE

SPIRITUAL

Your thoughts

Your feelings

Nutrition & biochemistry

Life load

Purpose & meaning

Your behavioural response to stress

Your emotional response to stress

Your physical response to stress

How your lifestyle contributes to stress

Your ability to transcend negative stress

Your thoughts create feelings – if you think a negative thought you feel bad, and if you think a positive thought you feel good. Your feelings, in turn create a physical response. How you treat your body can also create an emotional response (have you had the feeling when you are over-tired and become tearful or irritable? Or too much coffee makes you anxious?). Your life-load – how much you have to do – can leave you feeling exhausted. And finally, if you lack purpose and meaning in life, your ability to deal with stress can be compromised.

When your thinking is positive, you feel emotionally strong; when you take care of your health you contribute to your emotional resilience; when you manage your life so there is a balance of doing and being, you feel a sense of equilibrium to rise above challenges; and when your life has purpose and meaning then you are more able to deal with life’s trials and tribulations. This then gives you the five foundations:

THE FIVE FOUNDATIONS

Clarity ▪ Skills ▪ Confidence ▪ Health ▪ Energy

As an integrative therapist, I work on all these levels to help people develop their stress resilience, become healthier, happier and more confident. To find out more call me on 0345 130 0854.

If your feelings could talk, what would they say? Feelings are the physical representation of emotion. They communicate your wants and needs. They tell you when you are happy and when something isn’t right.Yet, all too often, we ignore them. Sometimes this is because of the way we were brought up (it isn’t nice to be angry, big boys don’t cry, etc) and sometimes it’s because we have no idea how to deal with them, or because the feelings are too painful.

Negative feelings can be a combination of events from the past, stresses in the present and worries about the future, even though the only reality is now. If you find yourself over-reacting to situations, it is unlikely to be simply about what is happening in the moment but instead is likely to be an emotional resonance with what has happened in the past- a reminder which supports a limiting belief.For example, someone being late to meet you for lunch may remind you of all the times that people have let you down, whether intentionally or otherwise, and may perpetuate a limiting belief of “I am not important”.

So what happens? We learn to suppress and repress our feelings and this can lead to problems in relationships and even our health. It also leads to distracting behaviours. When we feel bad, we often distract with food, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, shopping, gambling etc. But this does not deal with the underlying problem, it simply disguises it for a moment or two. When we suppress in this way, the underlying problem grows in intensity – like it is shouting to be recognised.It doesn’t matter how much food, alcohol, tobacco or clothes you have – it will not help you feel less bored, anxious, frustrated, depressed or lonely. Those feelings come right back and you need more of your distractor to help you feel “normal”. It is a vicious circle and it’s important to deal with the core issue when you can.Ask yourself: “How much do I have to eat (buy/drink/smoke/work/etc) to resolve this issue?” Distractors are ultimately unsatisfying because you do not truly meet your emotional need.

FEELINGS AND ASSOCIATED NEEDS

There are eight main negative emotions. Here is what they mean:

Primary Feelings

Feeling

What it's telling you

What it wants

Boredom

Lack of Challenge

Fulfilment and growth

Anger

A sense of unfairness or of a boundary being broken

To make things fair and create clear boundaries

Guilt

Feeling that you have been unfair or unkind to someone

To make amends

Sadness

Loss (real or imagined, person, status or item)

To feel whole

Lonliness

A lack of connection to yourself, to others or the world

Meaningful relationships

Inadequacy

Feeling unworthy

To feel good enough

Stress

A feeling that you have more to handle than your perceived ability to cope

A feeling of control

Fear

Feeling insecure or in danger

To feel safe and secure

When these primary feelings are ignored, they can lead to frustration (that what you are doing is not working) and, ultimately to depression. The only way to avoid this trap is to learn how to deal with your feelings constructively. There are four ways of doing this:

1. SELF-COACHING

a) Name the feeling
b) Identify the cause of the feeling (unfulfilled need, want or desire)
c) Identify a satisfying response (an action that fulfils the need, want or desire)

2. COACHING OR THERAPY

Often it is helpful to work with someone who is skilled at helping others. They can steer you through the complexity of your past. For more information see www.pw-hypnotherapy.co.uk.

3. PRACTICE EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUE

This is a wonderful technique that helps you to manage your emotions constructively. For a demonstration on how to do this, see www.self-help-resources.co.uk or contact Tricia Woolfrey on 0345 130 0854 for 1:1 coaching on how to do it.

4. HAVE HEATLHY DISTRACTORS

Doing something positive can help you change state naturally. Try the following ideas:

Do some exercise – a great way to relieve stress and help you feel in control

Keep a journal – writing down your feelings can be very cathartic

Declutter your home/desk – clutter is a way of hanging onto negative emotion so decluttering can be very therapeutic

Start doing self-hypnosis – an excellent way of maintaining a positive outlook and feeling relaxed (see the book An Inside Job ™ – coming soon at www.pw-hypnotherapy.co.uk)

Call or see a friend – maybe someone you haven’t talked to in a while

Do something kind for someone – there is no better way of instantly feeling good

When you listen to what your feelings are telling you and respond appropriately, you are on your way to feeling a lot better about yourself, gaining perspective on a situation and having a healthier relationship with yourself and others.